


Don't Meet Your Hero

by Chellann_Nicollares



Series: Good Mythical Hunting [1]
Category: Rhett & Link, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunters, Crossover, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Non-Con Bondage, Past AU, Split Reality, The Serpent King is something fierce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:52:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chellann_Nicollares/pseuds/Chellann_Nicollares
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this series Rhett and Link are in an established romantic relationship. By day they are YouTubers, by night they are saving people and hunting things.<br/>The following story is set in the Supernatural Season 6 universe; after Sam came back from the Cage without his soul but before Dean fixed him. It was the winter of 2010. Rhett and Link were in their early GMCL era, still living in NC. The two brotherly pairings crossed paths in a life-threatening supernatural pursuit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Link's Reality

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who are not familiar with Supernatural, I will put a glossary in the end notes of the relevant chapters to explain the creatures, artifacts and rituals.  
> I really want this to be a series. Please let me know in the comments if you like seeing Rhett and Link as hunters, and leave me requests, suggestions, critiques, everything.  
> This is the most awesome fandom and I love all of you.

People are going to think what they want to think/

I let them/

You can’t control perception/

It’s a losing game so I don’t play.

\-- Jem Goulding, "The Fragile Balance"

 

 

Link slowly stood up against a dull pain on the left side of his neck. The dark hallway in front of him stretched towards a dimly illuminated opening. The shadow of a figure was fleeing towards the light. Link nudged his tortoise shell glasses back in place, pushed himself off of the wall, and broke into a pursuing sprint.

He listened to the muddy echoes of his footsteps in the hallway, and detected the muffled clatter of a struggle at the far end. He ran even faster. The screech of the Lamia was getting louder, and in its background there were strained hisses and growls of a fighting man. A few seconds later came a deafening shatter of wooden furniture and the thump of a body accompanied by a loud, involuntary groan. Link was gripped by alarm. _I will not let it touch him_. He vowed and drew his blade before turning into the room where the struggle was taking place.

In the far corner of the room, the lean figure of a woman shrouded by a wild halo of black, waist-length hair was bending over a man slumped between the walls. Her back hunched like a feasting panther. Link saw her raise one hand and gather the leathery yellow fingers into a claw. The tips of her talon were long, black, dagger shaped nails. Underneath her was a man that should have been reduced to a trembling sob, but his green eyes held nothing but belligerent rage. His short hair was a familiar shade of dirty blond, but he was not Rhett.

The fearless but unarmed man watched as the abominable head threw back and the tip of a brilliant blade thrust through her throat. Behind the creature, Link was gripping the handle of the knife with a stone-cold glower, and he gave it a sharp, decisive twist.

The green-eyed man pushed the dying creature off of himself before the vile excretion of poisonous blood could stain his cargo jacket. He agilely sprang up. For a brief moment he and Link both seemed mesmerized by the violent death twitches of the Lamia and the slow metamorphosis of its feminine lower body into a scaly pile of lifeless serpent.

The rescued man turned to Link. He had a boyishly handsome face adorned by an aquiline nose and full lips. Underneath the gracefully arched brows, his almond-shaped green eyes were incredibly kind. He took in Link’s thin but fierce figure clad in a dark mauve T-shirt and frowned slightly at the stack of jenga blocks printed in white. His eyes followed the muscular arm down to Link’s right hand. He pointed to the weapon.

“That’s…”

“Blessed silver.” Link’s reply was cool and steady. No point trying to tell a man monsters aren’t real when he just watched one die without even flinching. “Hi, I’m Link. Link Neal.”

The handsome features softened. “Dean Winchester.”

“ _The_ Dean Winchester?” Link’s blue eyes widened into guileless pools while he shook Dean’s hand. He had accrued the Edlund books at the beginning of his hunting career and studied the experience and methods of the Winchester brothers with the disciplined dedication of an engineer.

“Dean, are you…” A tall, massive man barged into the room before Dean could reply. He had flowing, chin-length hair parted in the middle, deep set hazel eyes and long sideburns. Link admired the stranger’s high cheek bones, chiseled Cupid’s bow and full lips, and thought his features had an exotic quality. The tall man stared at the bespectacled hunter, mouth agape.

“No. Fucking. Way. Link Neal?” The muscular man’s index finger floated in disbelief towards Link.

“In the flesh. Uh…might I ask how you know me?”

The intruder chuckled. "Well, my brother and I are always on the road and for me at least, YouTube is pretty much the only entertainment. And out of all the crazy stuff I've seen there, you and Rhett are about the most creative people. I like your work.”

Dean sighed. “Link, this is Sam. I hate to admit it but he’s my brother.”

Sam only paid attention to the friendly hand that Link held out and shook it with a thrilled smile. “But…why are you here?” Sam’s eyes then traveled to Link’s other hand and the dripping silver blade, then the expired monster laying in the corner. Realization and surprise mingled in his expression.

“My partner and I caught the trail of the Lamia. He was missing and all my investigation suggested that the Lamia took him. I was expecting to find him here but…guess not.” Link dipped his head with a grave frown.

“But you did save my bacon.” Dean graciously offered. “Believe it or not, the skinny dude’s better packed than we were.” He turned to his brother and begrudgingly complimented the YouTuber.

“Wait, wait, wait, Link friggin’ Neal ganked a Lamia? Didn’t you say you were the queasy one? In those.. vlog things? ”

Link responded with a wry smile. “I’m a really good actor, aren’t I?”

Sam’s smile was warm and appreciative. He gave Link a hearty clap on the shoulder. Link was preoccupied by his futile search of Rhett and hardly noticed how Sam’s hand lightly trailed down along the length of his bare arm before pulling back.

“Well, let’s clean up and grab a drink.” Sam suggested with his husky voice. “There’s a building not far from here getting imploded next week. I scoped out some closets that we can lock the body in.”

Link’s mind wandered as the three of them proceeded to take all the precautions demanded of a hunter. He managed a courteous compliment of the Impala before climbing into his own car and following behind the brothers as they drove. Today was supposed to be the day he eliminated the monster and reunited with the only man he has ever loved, but his dreams fell through. Sitting next to the empty passenger’s seat, Link felt his thrill from meeting his heroes quickly extinguished by the loss and longing that had been hanging over him for the past week.

_My brother, my love, where are you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lamia: a Greek mythical monster that is half woman and half serpent, eats human hearts and drinks human blood. It sometimes leaves a dark claw in its victim's chest. It can be killed by a silver knife blessed by a priest, or by being doused in rosemary and salt then set on fire.
> 
> The Edlund books: a series of books written by prophet Carver Edlund detailing Sam and Dean's life; each book bears the title of a Supernatural episode. Because he is a prophet, whatever written by Edlund will come to pass. The brothers didn't know of the existence of the books until they met the prophet in person in Season 4. The book series has its own fictional fandom in the TV show. Edlund disappeared after the end of Season 5 and the books stopped getting renewed, so that after Swan Song, the public had no knowledge of the Winchesters' life and whereabouts.


	2. Rhett's Reality

Rhett slowly opened his eyes against a dull pain on the left side of his neck. He stared at the speckled ceiling above him, glanced to the right, and saw a neat grid of Merle Haggard CDs covering the green wall. He shifted and felt the familiar texture of overstuffed linen cushions. He had fallen asleep on the studio couch again.

“Hey sleeping beauty.” Rhett carefully turned his stiff neck towards the flawless complexion of his dark-haired friend. Link’s tortoise shell glasses hang low on his nose bridge, and his lips held a smirky but loving smile. He bent down to give the groggy pink lips a gentle kiss.

“What time is it?”

“8:30.”

“Ughhh.” The blond couldn’t hold back his exasperated groan. “Please tell me you finished the research.”

“Need you even ask? I sent the pics to Morgan already. He’s threading the segments together right now.”

A relieved sigh. “You _are_ a godsend, aren’t you?” Link’s smile grew wider.

“Oh, what about the _other_ research?” The smile disappeared.

“Not much good news. Come over, I’ll show you.” Link held out his hand, pulled Rhett upright with a firm flex of his arm, and led his blond lover to the desk. They pushed their office chairs together in front of Link’s laptop.

“First case, Meredith Fitzgerald, 22 year old student at NC State. Found in the Brickyard. Death caused by severe impact.”

“So a jumper.”

“Not likely. She was in the dead center of the yard, 30 feet away from all of the surrounding buildings. Even if she had started from a sprint on the rooftop, there’s still no way anyone can fling themselves that far. However the amount of internal bleeding and the shattering of her organs suggested at least 40 feet of free-falling.”

Rhett had no reply but a troubled frown.

“Second one four days later, Ian Martin, 34 year-old chief compliance officer of an investment firm called Abbott & Parker, dead in his penthouse. His place might as well be a fortress. No entry into the building without a keycard, security at the front desk, pass codes and cameras in the elevator. The alarm system in his apartment was still armed when he was found.”

“So how’d he die?”

“Four large and hollow stab wounds close together along his spine. They punctured his torso clean through.”

"Jesus.”

“Yeah, brutal and deliberate. No idea who could have gotten in or what kind of weapon could have possibly done that.” 

Rhett was thinking hard with his arm protectively wrapped around Link’s shoulders. His thumb mindlessly rubbed up and down Link’s shapely bicep.

“Tim sent these?”

“Yeah. Behind the police chief’s back of course. He’s still trying to get his hands on the crime scene photos. He said the whole precinct was working hard on these two. They’re parsing through emails and messages right now and haven’t found any obvious enemies or anything. Two impossible cases within one week, but they don’t seem connected and we don’t know if the same thing was responsible.”

“Or the same person.”

“It would take a person who defies physics itself.”

Rhett contemplated the succinct conclusion, and nodded in agreement.

“Anything from the checklist?” Rhett was referring to the list of common questions that hunters would ask to rule out the usual supernatural suspects—cold spots for ghosts, sulfur for demonic possession, etc.

“No cold spots. The lab is still doing chem test. If they find sulfur we’ll know.”

“OK then. Should we do one last social media sweep?”

Link grinned. “My favorite part.”

Link pulled up the special program their friend Nathan had written for them. It was a simple but elegant coding system that first gathered all the social pseudonyms associated with a real legal name typed into the search box, and then organized all the social media footprints that the real name and pseudonyms have scattered in the blue nowhere. The information would then be categorized by data host—Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, even the newly launched Pinterest and Instagram—and ordered chronologically. Nathan, the geeky hipster with a brilliantly cynical sense of humor, had named the program “TraprKeepr.” Rhett distinctively remembered the first time Link tried the program he had called it “orgasmic.” Amused by the fond memory, he pulled his sweetheart deeper into the side hug.

"Ok. The girl aka @IheartTaylor2954…figures. Psych major. Not much connection can be made from the classes she’s taking, nothing remotely financial. Oooh, Folklore, Myth and Religion. Might be something there. Facebook…status: single…photos are mostly group selfies…a few common faces in these. Conveniently tagged. Could you hand me that pad?” Rhett complied and Link jotted down a few names in his fluid cursive. Rhett loved the acute, analytical mind more than he loved the curves and edges of the deliciously tanned body. He planted a soft kiss on the side of Link’s neck.

“Mmmmm.” Link basked in the adoration before he read on. “The other sites…mostly reblogs and pins of fashion stuff and cupcakes. Gahh, people _wear_ that?” Link pointed at a reblogged picture of a knee length dress with a flared hem covered in metal spikes. “How do you sit down? Crazy! Anyway it tells us nothing. Twitter…complaints about papers to write, gossip, nonsense…” Link sighed. He then put the names of the frequently tagged girls from the Facebook photos through the software, and found they appeared to just be amicable acquaintances. This girl did not have anyone in her life that would want her dead.

Rhett caressed the brunet’s disappointed pout and stroked his silken hair. “How about we put a pin on this and check the other guy?” Link nodded. A ping sounded from the computer.

“IM from Tim. They found some email exchanges between Martin and the CEO of his firm. Apparently there’s some tension about him leaving his job.”

“They forcing him to go?”

“The opposite. Tim said there were some vaguely threatening language about drawing attention from the SEC if he left, and how that’s in neither party’s best interest.”

“Wait, what’d he do at the company again?”

“Chief compliance officer.”

“What does that mean?” 

Link paraphrased the question and typed it into Google’s search box. They both intently read the search results in silence.

“So this would be the person who makes sure that his financial firm only makes moves that comply with laws and regulations. One of the forum posts said that if a CCO is leaving, it usually implies that the firm is doing something that he disapproves, meaning illegal, and he can’t make them stop. That would put SEC on their trail immediately.”

“Smells like motive.” Rhett knotted his dark, expressive eyebrows.

“Yup. And you _know_ the rich and powerful are the biggest buyers of cursed objects and witchcraft tools.”

“Unfortunately.” Rhett said through his teeth.

“I’ll give Tim a heads-up to watch for weird purchases in the bank statements of those higher-uppers at the company.”

“Good call.” A soft kiss on Link’s temple.

A rapid percussion fell on the keyboard as Link completed his task. He then slumped into the chair and frowned again. “What about the college kid?” His voice was low and somber. The fact that someone from their alma mater had met such a violent end pained both of them.

“Hmm.” Rhett turned the facts in his head for a few moments. “Occam’s razor.”

Link responded with a questioning look. “How does that apply?”

“What is our hypothesis with the least amount of assumptions in a case where no apparent motive can be found?”

“That there is none.” Link’s nod was pensive and hesitant. “Could she really be a random victim of some random supernatural force?”

“That’s a possibility we have to keep open, for now. That it’s just an unfortunate coincidence that they died in the same week, and that they really aren’t related. One is murder, one is not.”

Link nodded. His eyes suddenly flicked to the wall clock.

“Dang it! The gym’s closed. I was gonna stop by real quick and work my lats before we go home.”

“Your lats are plenty sexy my dear.”

“It’s for the _job_.” Link held out his hand and gave Rhett a stare that said “duh.”

Rhett folded the screen down on the laptop. “Well, if you _need_ exercise, we do have some equipment around here.”

Link cocked his head to the side with naïve cerulean eyes and a puzzled pout. Rhett buried his hand in Link’s soft hair and drew his bottom lip between his teeth with a leery smile. He flicked his long, dark blond eyelashes and looked towards the large, soft, watermelon colored exercise ball in the corner of the room.

“Oh. _Ooh_.” Link’s eyes glimmered with nervousness and thrill as soon as he realized the full implication of Rhett’s suggestion. “Um…I’m not that good at balancing…”

“I am.” Rhett’s confidence sent a surge of arousal through Link’s groin. The tall blond gripped his younger friend’s firm arms and lifted the lean body out of the chair. His arms locked behind Link’s back with a visor grip while one hand travelled up amidst the roots of the wavy, inky hair. But before they had time to finish their frantic kiss, a harsh ring of their special phone grated their eardrums. They groaned in unison.

Link picked up the black device from its thick interference dock. It was their untraceable phone designated for hunting. It got answered regardless of when it might ring.

“Hello? ... mm hm, mm hm. Yes, thank you…” Rhett half-heartedly listened to the one-sided conversation. He was petulant in the frustration of his desires.

When Link put down the phone, his expression was grave and apologetic. “The pics are in. Tim said they were _bad_.”

They reopened the laptop. Link retrieved Tim’s email, downloaded all the attachments, and thoroughly removed the trace of the email from his hard drive. They leafed through the gory images of death in respectful silence.

“Wait, go back to image 5.” Rhett requested. “And pull up 8 next to it.”

On the left side of the screen was a close-up shot of the paved ground of the Brickyard, the same ground that Rhett and Link used to walk and run across and linger upon to steal midnight kisses. The smooth tiles paved into interlocking crosses were now stained by ominous clusters of crimson. On the right of the screen was a section of a plush pearl grey velvet rug from the penthouse. Abstract shapes of blotchy red bloomed out of the luscious material.

Rhett adjusted the size of the photos to be smaller than the notepad Link was writing on. He then tore out two pages and pressed the sheer papers to the screen one after another. On each page he used a black pen to trace lines through the blood spatters of each victim. When he set the papers down, they were both displaying the same pattern: a circle with two lines extending out of opposite ends of its diameter and then sharply bending in opposite directions in the rough shape of a “Z”.

“Oh no.”

“My worst fear.”

The brunet and the blond both turned very pale in front of the sigil of Daeva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daeva: a special type of shadow demon considered to be a “demonic pitbull”. It is lesser than the more popular form of demons in the Supernatural universe that possess humans. It is enormous, humanoid, and destructive; and only manifests as shadows. It can be momentarily dispersed by bright light. It can be summoned and bound using a black altar; but if the altar is destroyed it will turn on whoever tried to bind it.


	3. Wayward Station

(Link’s reality)

“How can you guys even manage being in this line of work? Your faces are all over the Internet. I just saw your McDonald commercial on TV the other day. People recognize you. You can’t exactly walk to someone’s front porch and flash a fake badge.” Sam set down his beer glass embossed with the name of the bar “Wayward Station” and stared at Link intently.

“Well, first of all, we’re internetainers, not real celebrities.” Link flashed a stiff, sarcastic smile. “Also we’ve been acting since middle school. We’re _very_ good with makeup and costumes. But more importantly, we mostly work through people to gather info. We have contacts at the local police department, coroner’s office, newspaper, you name it. We’ve got a network of friends that we can hand our lives over to.”

The identical look of disbelief appeared on Sam and Dean’s faces. In their world, hunters simply stayed out of each other’s way.

“That’s how we work. We found our first grade teacher after thirty years without even using the phonebook. We made a movie about it.”

“You’ll have to show me that movie some time. I bet it’s brilliant.” Sam said enthusiastically. Dean squeezed his eyebrows into a tight knot and glared at his dark-haired brother. Sam ignored him as always.

The psychedelic melody of _White Rabbit_ suddenly started to play. Dean pulled out his phone. Link recognized the Jefferson Airplane song and thought it was an oddly uncharacteristic choice of ringtone for the green-eyed daredevil.

“It’s Cas.” Dean flashed the screen towards his brother. Sam gave him a knowing nod, and Dean did not need to add another word before he pressed his phone to his ear and started to walk outside to take the call. Sam’s eyes followed his brother for a few seconds, then darted back to Link’s face.

“So you and Rhett, you’re…partners?”

“Yes.”

“Partners as in…”

“Everything.” Link’s proud conviction rang in his voice, and he thought Sam’s nod seemed perfectly respectful.

“So how did he go missing?”

“Well, we were scanning the news for anything that might be… you know, _our_ kind of business. We found a death by exsanguination. Victim’s heart was gone, and there was a black claw left in the chest. The police was interrogating practically every person in the dead guy’s life, going crazy over possible occult rituals. Only we knew that no human could have ripped open a person’s chest like that, you know? Given the average density of muscles, add in the structural integrity of bones, the cohesion force of human tissues… I mean, the tensile strength of skin alone is…” Link watched as confusion grew thicker in Sam’s expression. He remembered that even though the legendary hunter had gone to Stanford, he studied pre-law, not engineering. He swallowed the spark of enthusiasm and decided not to go into a detailed lecture.

“Anyway, we did more research and figured out that it was a Lamia. Last Tuesday we tracked it to the abandoned research lab over on Briar Street, but lost it when we got to the basement. I had to go pick up some supplies, Rhett went home alone. When I got back our door was open, the living room was…” Link had to pause. The thought of Rhett being followed, being hurt and dragged out of their apartment had driven his heart into painful palpitation. What was worse, he fully realized that since he had killed the Lamia and Rhett wasn’t in its lair, he now had no idea where his partner might be or who or what might have taken him there.

_My brother, my love._

Link’s mind was racing towards the possibility of never seeing his best friend again. He hushed the thought, took off his glasses and slowly rubbed his eyes. With a deep, shaky breath he resumed his monologue.

“There was stuff broken and tossed over everywhere. I had to pick up all of the pictures and books on supernatural mythology and hide them before calling the police.” Link closed his eyes. He realized that he was gripping his own arm so hard that it had started to hurt. He relaxed his hand.

When Link opened his eyes Sam’s broad palm had found its way onto his bony shoulder. “We’ll help you find him.” Sam offered. Link expressed his gratitude, but couldn’t help frowning at how Sam’s thumb was softly but repeatedly rubbing his collar bone through his shirt. He cleared his throat and leaned back. Sam turned back to his beer, took a long sip and suddenly realized something.

“Can I see some pictures of the missing guy?”

Link hesitated, but decided that with the added manpower and Sam and Dean’s experience, he would be able to find Rhett faster. He could not spend another day alone with his frantic thoughts visualizing the worst of scenarios, suppressing the urge to scream in every waking moment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He tapped into the gallery and scrolled until he found a photo of Rhett that he snapped when they shot the music video of _2 Guys, 600 Pillows_. The ravishing blond was wearing those burgundy jeans that hugged his long legs perfectly and the soft black T-shirt that seemed to have been painted over the outlines of his muscles. He was looking at something off-camera, hands on his hips, and flashing a crinkly-eyed smile as bright as the golden highlights in his hair. Link felt the sting of tears. He peeled his eyes off of the screen and turned it towards Sam. He did not expect the brawny hunter to pluck the phone out of his hand.

Sam contemplated the image before him. “Hmm, I see the attraction.” Link was suddenly offended by the lightness of his tone. He held out his hand to demand his personal device back. Sam ignored him and started to swipe through more photos. Link started to feel very uneasy.

“Woah, _nice_.” Link glared at Sam’s lopsided smile and thought he saw a leer. He peered at his phone in the taller man’s hands. They were looking at a photo of Link on a mountain biking trip. He had on a blue bandana with white paisley prints holding down his curly fringes, and was wearing his shiny polarized sunglasses with a mess of dark stubble and a carefree smile. His arms were folded across his chest, muscles flexing against the red T-shirt that originally belonged to Rhett. His charcoal grey cargo shorts were lose but flattering, and his long legs were parted in a wide stance.

Link reached out and grabbed his phone from Sam’s hands. The bigger man seemed amused by Link’s self-conscious reaction, and also emboldened by alcohol. He stared at Link with a narrow-eyed grin, then slowly scanned up and down the YouTuber’s lean body. Link was irritated by Sam’s flighty attitude, and deeply troubled by such inappropriate manner of the legendary hunter that he had admired and learned from. He excused himself and weaved through the noisy crowd towards the bathroom.

Locking the door behind himself, Link set his glasses on the dingy counter and splashed his face with tap water. _What the hell?_ He thought. Before today, the name “Sam Winchester” meant a legend that was kind and righteous; it meant a myth of a man who would give his life for any stranger in distress. Not…this. _I guess there’s no such thing as an unbiased biography._ Link concluded. He glared at his reflection in the dimly lit mirror, and decided that there was a more important goal: Rhett. He needed to swallow his petty unease and work with the Winchesters until he could hold his best friend in his arms again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the reflection of a small, framed poster hanging on the bathroom door. He turned around to look at it. It seemed to be just a plain white sheet of paper with two lines of bold black print:

**Is this reality?**

**Do you want it to be?**

_What?_ Link briefly considered the philosophic connotation of the questions, and his mind immediately leapt to the irony of their presence in the bathroom of a dive bar. He snickered, opened the door and headed back to his earlier seat.

Link was surprised to find that Dean still hadn’t returned from answering his phone. He sat down and decided that it was time to put a pause to the confusing situation. He lifted his glass and chugged the remaining water.

“I really appreciate you offering to help me. However it’s getting late and we’re all tired today. Let’s regroup in the morning and figure something out.” He stood up and was taken aback by how the room was swaying in front of his eyes. He caught his falling body by his hands thumping onto the edge of the table, but his vision faded into darkness despite the widening of his eyes.

Only then did his rational mind catch up with the earthy taste of mandrake in his water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mandrake: a powerful magic hallucinogen that can be used in sedation and hypnosis witchcraft. This came from my own research and did not appear in the Supernatural TV show, however it did make an appearance in the Harry Potter series as the “screaming plant”. Consider it a supernatural roofie in the context of this story.


	4. Red Wolf and White Rabbit

(Rhett’s Reality)

There had been no question left that the victims were murdered by the same thing. Blood spilled into the sigil of Daeva was simply no random event. It was spilled that way because someone had summoned the demonic shadow from the depth of hell and ordered it to kill.

“Are we sure about this? The books said Daevas are summoned and bound by demons, but they found no sulfur at either crime scene.” Rhett leaned against the wall of their dressing room, arms folded. He watched Link peruse his arsenal of back-up glasses and contacts in the bottom drawer of his dresser.

“I don’t think summoning depends on the identity of whoever performs the ritual.” Link picked up a slim navy case, stood up and walked over to sit in the makeup chair in front of the lighted vanity mirror. “If humans can summon demons, and Daevas are a lower-level dwellers of hell compared to demons, I think humans should be able to manipulate Daevas.” By the time he finished the sentence, the brunet had already thoroughly misted his soft hair with a sea salt texturizing spray. The subtle waves in his inky hair tightened up into messy curls. Rhett watched in fascination as Link brushed the sections of hair above either ear tight and flat against his scalp, secured it with gel, and left the top section tousled and piled on his forehead. “And given that it requires a collection of rare objects and herbs to perform the ritual, the difficulty and cost of acquiring them indicates one player or team instead of two independent ones.” Rhett nodded at the mirror. Link snapped open the navy lens case, and swapped his tortoise shell glasses for a pair with a half-wrap titanium frame that changed to black on the sides.

When Link got up to change, Rhett took the seat in front of the mirror and ruffled through one of the top drawers until he found a bottle of foundation notably darker than his complexion. He took a makeup sponge and tapped a thin layer onto all of his exposed skin with a practiced hand. He carefully examined his work in the mirror and carried on his conversation with Link to briefly review and confirm their plan for the day. After a mist of sealing spray, he picked out a soft off-white beanie and pressed it low on his forehead, hiding his usually gravity-defying hair and covering half of his well-known, dramatic eyebrows. They both pulled on charcoal jeans. Link opted for a solid black cashmere sweater while Rhett threw on a dark and non-descriptive graphic T and his worn-in grey hoodie. They both stepped into drab weather-proof hiking boots, careful to leave the iconic Mythical shoes at home.

“Excited to go back to school?” Link’s blue eyes sparkled while he tried to hold back a smirk.

Rhett gave him a mischievous stare, then clamped one hand on Link’s hip and the other on the back of his neck. He tilted Link’s body far back and looked down into the shorter man’s eyes as they widened and dilated, and the full pink lips parted in surprise. But before the brunet could take a steadying breath, Rhett had leaned down and thrown himself onto Link’s lips. By the time he was done kissing the blue-eyed imp, Link was panting dizzily; his teasing question long forgotten. He let Rhett take his hand and almost stumbled the whole way to the car.

As soon as the hunting team stepped onto the NC State campus they blended in very easily. Granted, Link’s golden-ratio physique and chic, polished look turned quite a few heads. Each time someone shot the sharp-dressed man a lingering, smiling look, Rhett was beaming triumphantly, knowing that it was him who gets to take this ageless heartthrob home and pin him against the wall. The thought made him bite his lip, snake out his arm around Link’s slim waist and give it a tight squeeze. Link stumbled under the forceful gesture and almost crashed into Rhett’s side, he turned in surprise and immediately recognized the wicked leer glimmering in Rhett’s hazel eyes. He drew a steadying breath without realizing that he was blushing.

When they reached the Brickyard there was a crime scene clean-up team hard at work. The central section of the yard was completely fenced in by rope stands and police tapes, and men in hazmat suits pointed and gestured and scrubbed, oblivious to the booming youth just as much as the students ignored them. Rhett and Link had examined detailed close-ups of the scene from almost all angles. Not only were they not dejected by the traces of death being scrubbed away, they were relieved and hopeful that peace will soon return to their beloved campus.

Link tugged lightly at Rhett’s wrist, looking towards a corner where a memorial display had been set up for Meredith Fitzgerald. A few feet away, half a dozen students wearing mostly black were playing various instruments. The NC State wolf mascot was also there, dressed in the school color of red, swaying lightly to the tune. The tall, slim hunters slowly approached the group. Rhett saw Link straighten up his posture, clear his throat and put on a pre-emptive smile, and knew immediately that his partner was ready to turn on his charm. Being the more introverted of the two, the overwhelmingly tall blond was always happy to let Link take the lead in any conversation. He comfortably trailed behind, enjoying the view of his lover’s broad shoulders, slim waist and flexing backside.

As they got closer they both recognized that the students were covering Jefferson Airplane’s _White Rabbit_. The hunters who are musicians themselves listened to the creatively minimalist arrangement and the charmingly raspy vocal, and swayed appreciatively to the rhythm. When the music concluded Link offered warm compliments and masterfully steered the conversation towards Meredith’s life and presence on campus. Rhett seamlessly joined in, but they both soon realized that none of these students were particularly familiar with the deceased. They simply gathered here out of compassion for their fellow alum. The duo nodded, smiled and charismatically expressed their gratitude, ready to move on to the next stop.

Just as they turned and started to head towards the social science buildings, the wolf mascot walked over to them. Rhett saw Link’s Bambi eyes flare in surprise. He turned towards the approaching stranger with a polite smile. Whoever dressed up as the wolf stopped in front of Rhett, paused for a second, and only said two short sentences:

“Is this reality? Do you want it to be?”

Rhett was puzzled and amused by the abrupt non sequitur. His instinctive reaction was that the actor playing the mascot was high. However the inquisitive voice was clear, sincere and steady. Rhett felt oddly unnerved, but his response was quick.

“That’s deep, bro.” He said in the overly nonchalant tone of a college student trying to look cool at a party. On his left, Link’s index finger was pressed to his lips, his thumb was pinching under his jaw, and his whole body was shaking with a muffled chuckle.

Their next stop was the classroom of Folklore, Myth and Religion. The blond and the brunet silently blended into the bustling group of students filing into the auditorium, and took adjacent seats in the back. The room was dimly lit by the flashing PowerPoint slides and the duo quickly leaned in and pressed their shoulders and knees together like they did at work every day. Rhett slid his hand under the armrest and gently set it on Link’s thigh. He peeked at his partner out of the corner of his eye, and the brunet’s content smile with half-closed eyes made him want to move his hand to naughtier places right there and then.

However, the duo quickly became disappointed by the presentation. The professor’s notion of “folklore” was nothing that merited a hunter’s attention. He went on and on about sappy legends ranging from mythical creatures to rain-making and how that related to ancient agricultural rituals. They both struggled to suppress their yawns at the verbatim reproduction of verses from archaic literature. A few pictures of religious symbols and artifacts caught their eyes, but the summoning sigils and protection amulets were all, without exception, hilariously misinterpreted. They sighed at the exact same time and had to turn and giggle at each other.

Finally the lecture concluded. The hunting team pulled their professional faces back on and approached the podium. Feigning as students interested in taking the class during the following semester, they secured an invitation to the professor’s office.

“So, what makes you interested in folklore?” The professor turned to Link.

“Well, we both love literature and we have always been fascinated by the specific imagery that reference folklores and legends. They often create sort of a cryptic overtone, and we would love to further understand them in order to better interpret the literary works.” Rhett marveled at Link’s smooth and charming hogwash, and vigilantly scanned the professor’s bookshelves for anything that might raise a red flag.

Link continued to gush warm compliments about the lecture that made the professor beam. When a lanky, red-headed TA walked in with papers to be graded, the professor only acknowledged his entrance with a smiling nod, never breaking his enthusiastic conversation with Link. Rhett chimed in a few times, but most of his attention was still devoted to observing the room. He took note of an ornately carved chalice with an authentic dullness to its surface. It sat next to a thick, large, black leather-bound volume with no script on the cover. From the sides, the pages looked yellow and worn down. Rhett’s mind raced in search for an excuse to examine the book but failed to find a socially appropriate one. Frustrated, he focused on committing every detail of the two objects to memory.

Link had timed the end of the conversation perfectly. As soon as they left the building, Rhett sat down on the steps outside, took out his notepad and sketched as much of the chalice as he could remember. He also wrote down the estimated dimensions of the leather book that could easily be a spell manual. As soon as they got home Link thoroughly researched the name of the professor, Joseph Leiben, but the over 50-year old literary scholar had as little web presence as they expected. They swallowed their disappointment but relayed the name to Tim anyway.

Rhett looked at what must have been a few hundred pictures of medieval chalices and tried to make a connection between what he saw in Leiben’s office and Daeva summoning, but all he got out of the research was a sore neck and a pounding headache. He was starting to think that the professor’s mythical display was nothing more than an anthology of dead poets and an ash tray. Link rubbed his lover’s shoulders, muttered some comforting words of sweet nothings, and grumpily scratched at his gelled hair. “This is a ridiculous amount of product. I gotta go take a head shower.” He disappeared into the bathroom.

Link returned with his eyes on the towel around his hips, trying to tuck one corner under the top edge. In the blink of an eye the damp fabric was snatched from his body and tossed to the floor. He snapped his head up like a deer in the headlight, and saw that Rhett was already down to his boxers. He opened his mouth to say something but was instantly captured by Rhett’s lips, breathing Rhett’s breaths. Their bodies grinded together and Rhett’s underwear was soon flung onto the lampshade. They found their way to the bed in a stumbling, uncoordinated side step, connected at the lips. Their left hands were on the back of each other’s neck, and their right hands on each other’s hardness. They pumped and thrust as mirror images of each other. After a sweet eternity of pounding hearts and shaky breaths, their ecstasy spurted into the air like uncorked champagne. Panting, they fell on their backs into a cloud of soft sheets. As always, Link was the first one to drift off.

Rhett listened to Link’s peaceful deep breaths, and his mind flashed back briefly to the wolf mascot’s questions about reality earlier that day. He looked at his lover’s sweeping lashes and parted lips and smiled.

_This is real. I definitely want this to be real._

He closed his eyes and sank into oblivious dreams free of puzzles, deaths, and murderous shadows lurking in the dark.


	5. Soulless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you read what happens next, please remember that this is pure fiction. It does not reflect my personal beliefs, and I would never in a million years wish this upon anybody. This particular plot development is purely a consequence of the supernatural state of being that the fictional characters are in, and all will be explained in due time.

(Link’s Reality)

 

The cheap motel room looked very fuzzy. Link squinted, and realized that his glasses were gone. He felt the lingering hypnotic power of the mandrake like a fog dulling all of his senses and poisoning his mind with blissful oblivion. He drew jagged breaths deep into his chest and willed his eyes to search the scene in front of him. He recognized his green T-shirt and indigo jeans piling in a corner next to his shoes. He tried hard to remember taking them off when a sore pressure on his inner thighs pulled his eyes downward.

Link was surprised to see himself standing in front of the width of the twin bed in his underwear, his feet as wide apart as the dented and peeled metal frame. He stared harder at his ankles, and saw the zip ties binding each of his feet to a bed post. He started to feel colder, the coldest sensation coming from where his hands should be. He tried to gather his arms but heard a strange clink and felt a sharp strain in his shoulders from being pulled up. He struggled to raise his face to the ceiling, and saw that his wrists had been bound by handcuffs. The chain linking the two metal braces hooked over a low hanging section of a conveniently located sprinkler pipe riveted to the ceiling. He instinctively tried to pull his hands towards himself, but the searing pain from hard metal cutting into his skin told him that he wasn’t going anywhere. It was getting harder to control his quickening heart, more so when he realized that his tongue was being pressed far back into his mouth by a swathe of bitter fabric. He couldn’t help shuddering.

_Panic is not the solution to anything._

It was what Rhett told him with a smirk when they were working on their graduation project for Liquidynamics, and Link realized during the last hour before the deadline that he had used a wrong formula to do an essential series of calculations. Rhett had kissed him tenderly and helped him set everything straight. Those words had been his mantra ever since. Even being drugged and tied up in a dingy motel room, Link remembered his best friend’s words through the terrifying confusion. He held on to the thought like a titanium shield.

_Rhett, brother, where are you?_

_Where am I?_

“Wake-y, wake-y. Just when I thought I had to start without you, kitty.” Link frowned at the deep, husky and vaguely familiar voice. The figure sauntering towards Link’s thin, exposed body was none other than Sam Winchester. The tall, massive man had taken his shirt off.

_What the hell?_

Link blinked against the fog in his eyes and saw a bright, dazzling flash twirling intermittently in Sam’s hand. As the hunter got closer, Link recognized the slim silver object that tapered to a brilliantly sharp tip.

_That’s my knife._

_He drugged me with mandrake. He tied me up here waiting for me to wake up. And now he has my knife._

Link’s mind worked hard under the dizziness, like rusty cogs pushing painfully against excessive friction. He could comprehend the situation, but he could see no way out.

“ _Lin-k_. How cute.” Sam’s tongue played with his name. The beastly man paced in the manner of enjoying a walk on the beach, bouncing the cheek of Link’s knife in his free hand. He abruptly stopped inches away from Link’s body and turned to face the bound man. Link was suddenly painfully close to the burgeoning muscles on his captor’s oddly smooth chest. The heat rolling off of Sam’s aroused body sent a cold shiver from Link’s head to his toes. His eyes darted back and forth between the clear-cut outlines of those arms easily twice as big as his own and resembled a cluster of boulders concealed under taut skin. He instinctively tried to step back, but only managed to slam the back of his thighs into the cold, hard metal frame of the bed. The zip ties chafed and slashed the soft skin on his ankles.

The massive hunter cupped Link’s face and rubbed his gag-strained cheek with his thumb. “Hmm. So pretty.” He marveled. His index finger trailed from Link’s chin and drew all the way down his torso from throat to navel. The slender brunet convulsed under the touch. Disgust, alarm, and anger distilled into a painful, throbbing pressure in Link’s chest. He kicked against the zip ties and fought the gag with his tongue, but to no avail. His ankles and wrists felt raw, his shoulders felt torn, and his lips felt pinched and cracked. He couldn’t punch, or stab, or run, or scream. He couldn’t breathe. He could only gasp through his nostrils, fighting the suffocating lump in his chest.

_What is happening to me? What is going to happen?_

_Is Sam Winchester really doing this? Am I really looking at the man who stopped a plane crash, came back from the dead, and also took the rings from the four horsemen? This is the man who went to hell to stop the apocalypse? The very same man who kidnapped me and tied me up in a cheap motel and…_

_THAT’S NOT SAM WINCHESTER._

It was as if something in Link’s mind clawed through the impenetrable mess of cobwebs and screamed at him. His droopy eyelids flared open and his mind started to race through the possibilities.

_Shape shifter. No. He is touching silver and he is fine. A ghoul…a ghoul can only take on the shape of the person they eat. Dean would have known. Dean would never let a filthy creature eat his brother._

Link forced himself to look at the bulging muscles on Sam’s broad, glistening chest, and realized that the famous flaming pentagram tattoo had been removed.

_Possessed. Yes, that’s it. That’s a demon. Oh no, how the hell am I gonna recite the exorcism spell gagged? I can’t feel my tongue…_

But then he remembered that the rivets on his knife handle were made of pure iron, and they should haveseared into the man’s palm by now if there was a demon in his body.

_No, no, no…Think, Neal, THINK!!_

Link was furious at himself for not finding a solution. A bead of sweat escaped his hairline and started to trickle down the back of his neck. Frustrated, he yanked his hands frantically against the constraining metal, and immediately winced at the fresh laceration into the already angry bruises. The pain from his abused wrists, his screaming hamstrings, his crushed tongue and his torn lips sent his body into a violent shiver. The soulless man listened to his prey’s muffled growl and let out a trill of amused chuckles.

“Aww, kitty.” Sam’s rough thumb rubbed over Link’s bottom lip swelling around the gag. “You’re such a feisty little plaything. You know, I’ve been wanting to fuck your brains out ever since I saw you in that tight little tank top for that T-shirt thing. You are just asking to be fucked.”

Link’s eyes squeezed shut. It seemed like yesterday when he was making the T-Shirt War video with Rhett, watching the beautiful man pulling shirts off of his flexing shoulders again and again, feeling his lover’s strong hands all over his wet body when they were washing off the residue from the fire extinguisher. He felt a tremor deep in his lungs; every gasping breath became an even harder struggle. Angry and humiliated tears stung at his eyes and he desperately held them back. It became a much more difficult endeavor when he felt Sam’s thick arm wrap around his torso and a hot palm press against his exposed upper back, and then a waft of heat on his face. Sam’s hot, moist lips were set on his closed eyelid. The unnerving gentleness of his kiss twitched the pit of Link’s stomach.

“Did you know French people call an orgasm a ‘small death’?” Sam slid his hand down Link’s side, gripped his thin waist, and pressed the icy spine of the silver knife in his other hand against Link’s stomach. Link’s whole torso jerked back and Sam swiftly followed his motion with the non-lethal side of the sacred weapon. “If that were true, you won’t be breathing when I’m done with you.” He said, dragging the cold but blunt edge across Link’s soft belly, like a hunter disemboweling his prey. The blunt metal left no trace on Link’s tender, sensitive skin, only a snaking trail of shudders. Sam removed the knife, brought his face next to Link’s numb cheek, and whispered into his ear, “but you’ll be begging for more.”

Fury and adrenaline electrified Link’s body. He wanted a fight. He wanted to shatter the metal above him and crush his captor’s throat with his hands. He wanted to snatch back his knife and lunge it all the way into the torso of this man that he used to read about and admire. But his shivering, clammy body was only able to swing and twist against the steady and taut triangular suspension, driving the zip ties and the handcuffs deeper into his raw skin. When he opened his eyes, no miracle had happened. His legs were still screaming from being forced three feet apart, and the sturdy plastic ripples on the zip ties still clawed into his ankles. His hands were still dangling cold above him, and the handcuffs were still latched and locked in place and pulling him towards the ceiling. His eyesight was still blurry from the deprivation of his glasses, and the ugly beige wallpaper in front of him was still mocking him with silent apathy. Sam’s hand was still scorching his ribcage, and his hot, wet tongue had begun to lick under Link’s protruding collarbone.

The last time there was a wet trail under his collarbone being chilled by excited breaths, he was in Rhett’s arms.

Tears broke free and streamed down.

Sam tossed Link’s treasured blade onto the cold, dirty floor. His broad palms clamped onto Link’s slim thighs, and glided up in an agonizingly slow caress. They pushed Link’s loose boxers up to his hip bones, and traced around onto his backside. Link growled against the gag and desperately tried to jerk his body away, but only encouraged Sam to squeeze his hands harder on the lean muscles, pull the cheeks apart, and whisper broken phrases about how tight he must be. The increasingly aroused man grinded the bulge under his jeans against Link’s stomach, licked up the side of his neck and grazed his earlobe.

Link had to close his eyes. There was no need to see anymore. He could not get away from the burgeoning pressure on his sensitive belly, the hot hands fumbling his bottom, the wet tongue, the sharp teeth, and the unfamiliar hair scraping his face. And as if all that wasn’t enough, one of Sam’s hand inserted under the fabric of his boxers, and started tracing his cleft. Link’s stomach was gripped by a brutal nausea. He felt all the muscles in his legs seize up and a painful cramp inching up his calves. Just when he was getting consumed by the pain, he suddenly felt his captor’s intolerable heat withdraw from his body. He opened his eyes with the ghost of hope, only to see Sam disappear from his peripheral to climb onto the bed behind his constrained, dangling body.

Link listened to Sam’s belt buckle clink and unfasten behind him. The sound seemed to continue vibrating through the air for an eternity. He closed his eyes and retreated into the deepest corner of his mind that only held one word.

_Rhett._

A violent pounding on the door pulled Link back from darkness. He heard the bed spring squeak sharply and saw Sam stride past him. The captor opened the door to a dark hallway.

“What the fuck Sam, why’d you bail? And what the hell are you doing _here_?” Dean’s deep voice sounded in a clipped tone of irritation.

“You really shouldn’t have tracked me down, Dean. I’m so fucking sick of being joined at the hips with you. If I want a little fun, it’s my business.” Sam replied coolly, as unruffled as a man doing nothing more than reading the newspaper. Link stared through the haze at the broad back of the tall, dark and handsome hunter, and realized that in all thirty three years of his existence, he had never wished more badly for a gun.

But before he could form another thought, survival instinct tore a broken scream from his throat. The muffled sound rippled through the air. Dean cocked his head to the side and listened for a split second. Before Sam could close the door in his face, Dean had pushed him aside with so much force that the taller and bigger man stumbled back two steps. Dean charged through the doorway and froze as soon as he saw the mild-mannered hunter that had saved his life was stripped to his underwear and tied to the ceiling with his legs spread apart. Sam reached out to grab Dean’s back collar and throw him out of the room, when a stocky figure rushed in and pressed a small object onto Sam’s back. Link heard a shrill succession of zaps, and saw Sam’s slack body fall backwards onto the extended arms of the man holding the Taser.

“Straight to the bunker, Bobby.” Dean’s command was a deep growl. The stocky man in a filthy trucker’s cap started to back out of the room, averting his eyes from the almost naked hostage and dragging the unconscious culprit along with an awkward maneuver and a string of profanities. Link thought he heard a mutter that sounded like “bawls”.

Dean did not say a word before pulling the gag from Link’s mouth and hurling it against the far wall. Link felt his strained cheeks and jaw suddenly collapse onto each other and groaned in pain. Dean pulled out an ivory-handled spring knife, popped it open with a loud snap, and crouched down at Link’s feet. He sawed through the zip ties in silence. Link’s legs were so sore and numb from the forced exertion that his knees buckled before he could gather his feet under his weight. His drooping body put more strain on the handcuffs and the metal dug deeper into his bruises. Dean muttered “shit” and ripped a paper clip from his inner pocket. He stepped closer and worked it into the lock of the handcuff. Link felt the zipper on Dean’s open jacket scrape his skin and smelled a hint of deodorant, but his mind still had not registered the promise of rescue until they both heard a click. Dean unlatched the metal rings one after the other and gently peeled them off of Link’s bruised wrists. He caught Link’s hands in his own and slowly lowered them. The returning circulation stung so painfully that Link cried out a sharp whine. Pain and exhaustion drove his body crashing to the ground, but Dean cushioned him with his shoulder, carried him around the foot of the bed, and softly lowered him to sit on the covers. The kind green eyes searched Link’s face with concern for a brief moment before they darted towards the pile of clothes. Dean silently turned and retrieved them, set them on the bed next to Link, and walked out the door with his head hung low.

And just like that Link was completely alone. Silence hummed all around him without explaining what had happened or why. Bravado drained from his stripped body. He buried his face in his hands and trembled like a withering leaf.

After an indeterminate amount of time Link gathered himself. He pulled his clothes back on with angry, rapid movements. Just as he was tying his shoes with shaky fingers, there was a soft knock on the door. Link paused to listen to it, but resumed his motion without even lifting his head. The knob twisted slowly. The door cracked open and Dean’s frowning face peeked through. He saw that Link was fully dressed, and hesitantly let himself in.

“Link—” He started to speak but couldn’t find his words. He swallowed, exasperatedly shook his head and muttered “fuck.”

Link slowly stood up and responded with a wordless, livid stare.

“Link, whatever happened, that was not my brother.” Dean’s voice was pressed low. He did not look at Link.

 _I suspected as much_ , Link thought. Angry and betrayed, he remained speechless.

“You probably know he went down into the Cage as Lucifer’s vessel. It was the only way to lock the son of a bitch in there. We had to. We can’t just let the fucking world end.” Dean’s voice raised defensively, but he had to pause. When he spoke again, his deep baritone was laden with guilt. “When he was brought back, he was…” Dean’s voice hitched. He looked way, pursed his lips, drew a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “He doesn’t have his soul. Whatever he does, he feels nothing. He doesn’t… _get_ that certain things are just wrong.” His frown seemed deepened by the ridiculousness of his own statement. Dean held his tongue and slowly shook his head.

Link’s gentle blue eyes narrowed. He turned Dean’s narration over and over in his head, trying hard to accept, or just to understand.

“A soulless man is not a man.”

It was the first thing Link had said since finding himself in this strange room. He was surprised by how steady and strong his voice was.

Dean looked up. His green eyes were hurt, defensive and weary. Link felt a pang of regret. After all, he was speaking to the man who saved him from shame and violation. And if the man’s brother was without his soul, it was the consequence of an incredible sacrifice.

 _But does a man with no soul really deserve to walk the earth, to hurt and humiliate_ _whoever he wants however he wants, feeling nothing and fearing nothing?_

Link’s eyes left Dean’s troubled face and landed on his blessed silver knife lying on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer's Cage: Sam killed demon Lilith who had been breaking the 66 seals to raise Lucifer from his cage in hell, not knowing that Lilith herself was the 66th seal. Lucifer was freed, and the Winchesters had to gather the four horsemen's rings in order to open the Cage. Since they knew Lucifer would not go back willingly, and Sam was his vessel, the only way to lock Lucifer back in hell was for Sam to "say yes" and let Lucifer possess him, then jump into the Cage himself. This was done in the Season finale of Season 5. In Season 6, Castiel managed to bring Sam back, but he couldn't get his soul out of the Cage. Eventually Dean made a deal with Death to wear his ring for a day, and Death brought back Sam's soul and restored it. But at the point in time of this story, the restoration has not yet taken place.


	6. Nightfall

(Rhett’s Reality)

 

_It figures it would be raining today._

The ashy sky above was getting darker and pouring harder. Rhett sat motionless on a stone bench, watching the grass under his feet swim in a shallow puddle of mud. His un-styled hair had turned into a limp mess. It sponged up rain water and sent it trickling down his face, and he no longer knew if he was crying. He was barely aware of the world dissolving and cascading around him. His center of gravity was gone.

It seemed like just a moment ago when he was leaning against the cool wall in their dressing room, watching Link get ready for their Ian Martin investigation in Brier Creek. Rhett had already parted his hair on the side, gelled it down and pulled stylish comb marks that befitted the self-acclaimed financial elites that they were going to mingle with. Link was now doing the same.

“So this memorial reception. How are we gonna get in?” Rhett asked the dark-haired beauty in a carefree tone.

“Remember those dummy accounts I made on Facebook after we started the investigation? They worked. Some of the relevant players accepted our friend requests. They are now convinced that we have known Martin since college and still hang out with him every month. Our fake names are already on the list.” Rhett had to interrupt Link’s hair dressing routine and pull the brilliant lips into a passionate kiss.

Before long, Link had finished with his hair and swiftly applied a pair of brown contacts. Rhett appreciated how his partner had made a point to struggle with contacts whenever they made a behind-the-scene edit, so that no one in real life would ever expect to see Link Neal walk around without glasses. This added a lot of options to their disguise for hunting.

They both changed into crisp white shirts with pencil-thin ties, and tailored black suits that they didn’t usually wear for the public appearances at award shows. Looking at their solemn dress in the mirror, the stylish hunters both felt something heavy hanging in the air. They were disguising as members of a social class that they did not belong to, going to secretly investigate a group of people that they rarely dealt with. And since their NC State investigation proved fruitless, this might be their only chance left to identify the man behind the demonic shadow. They took deep breaths and gave each other reassuring side hugs before going out the door. Link hesitated outside, then turned back and retrieved the stack of flashcards he had made to study financial terminology along with names and faces of the movers and shakers. They reviewed the cards and added last-minute tweaks to their act on the way. Their long drive in the dark was anxious and without music.

Abbott and Parker was one of those places that did not spare a single detail to intimidate its visitors with its opulence and prestige. The property was a converted 1920’s luxury hotel, and the lobby of the firm preserved every single detail of the roaring golden age of currency and exchange. Rhett tried hard to not look like a tourist in Times Square, and kept his face smooth as his eyes scanned the gilded low-relief murals and the myriad of fixtures and figurines in scintillating jewel tones. The more his eyes took in, the more he felt out of place. He sensed Link’s concerned sideways glances on his face, and turned to the younger man to flash a reassuring smile. Link scrutinized his face for a second, then leaned up to his ear and whispered: “I wish we had eaten before coming here. They’re just gonna put black eggs on everything.” He sneaked a quick peck onto Rhett’s cheek before pulling back. The towering blond hugged his friend’s thin frame and instantly felt stronger. He straightened up and followed Link towards the banquet room marked by raised golden words of “Broker’s Hall” on its high beam.

“Nicolas Inman.”

“Gregory Levine.”

Their aliases earned them warm greetings and affable salutes of “sir”. Before long, the hunters each had a delicate flute of champagne in their hands.

As rehearsed, they casually approached the other participants and shared “college stories” with Ian Martin that they had practiced on the way. Both of them carefully observed the expressions of their conversing partners and analyzed the emotional overtones in their statements, searching for triumphant spite concealed under false grief. But even the master interviewers could only get so far in a crowd that had been versed in diplomacy and pretense since their tender years. Most of the conversations rapidly deteriorated towards clichéd versions of “tragic, isn’t it?” And “he’s a tough act to follow.”

Rhett was subtly pulling out his phone to review the available Facebook profiles and trying to re-strategize when he suddenly felt Link grip his wrist. Rhett followed his friend’s anxious gaze and saw a tall, thin, red-haired figure in a dark suit. His attire appeared to be a cheaper material than what the other guests were wearing, but it fit him well.

“That’s—”

“Leiben’s TA.” Link finished Rhett’s thought. They both abruptly turned to hide their faces from the young man that they had seen in the mythology professor’s office but never spoke to.

“Do you think he made us?”

“Hope not. We haven’t talked to anyone on that side.”

“But we need to get out. He probably already saw me. I’m a freaking head taller than everyone, period, he’s _gonna_ remember me from Leiben’s office. And if he catches on that we don’t belong here, it’ll turn the whole room on us.”

Link gave his blood brother a brisk nod, and they both hurried out of the building. They rushed towards their car in the dense and chilling night air.

“What is an NC State TA doing at a billion dollar finance firm’s memorial service for their CCO?” Link’s reasoning mind refused to stop spinning. But they both already knew the answer.

“He could be an intern or he could be related to somebody in there. Either way, there’s a strong possibility that he’s the hired gun.” Rhett’s voice was low and slightly horse. “Currently he is the only person linking the two deaths. He was probably the hound dog of whoever wanted Martin dead because he had access to the summoning manual—which must be that black leather book—and he probably had connections through Leiben or through his own circles to get the ingredients for the binding spell.”

“But…we looked up everything on Meredith and there’s no proof that those two ever even talked to each other. Why would he kill _her_?”

“I suspect the summoning and binding rituals are new to him as well. Meredith was probably just an experiment; to see if he could puppeteer the Daeva into killing. She was just a girl in the wrong class at the wrong time. Martin was the true target.”

Link’s sigh was a gloomy acquiesce. “We don’t even know his name.” Rhett was already formulating methods to retrieve that information through the faculty directory when he heard his best friend’s surprised voice ringing with alarm.

“Oh no.” Link’s troubled eyes were drawn towards an unintelligible shape in the distance. Rhett watched his partner impulsively dash towards it.

“Link wait—”

Rhett turned the corner following his lover, just in time to see an enormous black shadow that filled the wall of a two-story building. It had the rough shape of a man and the darkness of pure evil. In the split of a second it was behind Link’s body, and in even less time it fleeted away and disappeared into the night. The body that was Rhett’s only treasure in the world was arched back in a sharp convulsion, and fluids of crimson violently spurted out of Link’s chest.

Rhett’s scream gripped his throat with searing pain. His desperate sprint carried himself to his best friend just in time to catch his lifeless body slowly kneeling towards the ground. With a crazed sob Rhett clenched Link to his chest, praying that the force of his embrace would put his true love back together, but the heart between his arms refused to beat. Instead, it silently streamed out Link’s blood until it seeped through Rhett’s clothes and gathered into warm pools on his skin.

Along Link’s spine were four large apertures left behind by the invisible fingers of the Daeva.

Rhett blinked the rainwater away from his eyelashes and returned to the present. He was all alone in the cemetery. The funeral procession had left. Black was worn, tears were shed, and comforting words were offered through broken sobs. Rhett did not remember what he said, what he did, or how he managed to still be breathing. He slowly closed his eyes. He was at the funeral of his best friend that he had loved for twenty-five years, and he couldn’t even wear a proper suit, because the only proper suit he owned was soaked in Link’s blood.

_He is gone because I was useless._

_He is dead because I saw his killer and ran in the opposite direction. I was in the same room. I knew it was him and yet I left him free to set a demon on the man I love. I had plenty of chances to kill him._

_I still do._

The 6’7’’ figure slowly rose from the cemetery bench. His livid face was that of an angel of death ready to smite a doomed soul. His flexing muscles were those of a waking dragon inhaling deeply to fuel his breaths of flame. To avenge his brother, his best friend, his one true love, Rhett would gladly burn the whole damn world to the ground.


	7. Cobalt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the big resolve!! If there is any confusion about the premise or the internal logic, fire away in the comments ;) Your feedback always motivates me to work harder on my writing!

“A fucking Djinn on a college campus. Stopping the apocalypse really fucked things up.” Sam muttered. Dean agreed as they both held their knives steady and cautiously stepped down the hallway. They were in a defunct research lab in a forgotten corner of the NC State campus. Dusty incandescent light bulbs hang from the stripped ceiling, illuminating the stained and chipped white ceramic tiles lining the walls and the battered dark green linoleum under their feet. They stopped in front of a dusty, abused door labelled “Blood Analysis”. Dean peeked through the metal-meshed window embedded in the door, and saw rough shapes of human bodies dangling from the ceiling. He tightened his grip around his silver knife crusted with lamb’s blood, and gave a signaling look to his brother. Sam nodded, and Dean kicked open the door, knife held in front in a battle stance.

The room was entirely quiet. The Winchester brothers stepped inside, wielded their blades around a few times and saw no movement. In front of them, two unconscious young men had their hands tied with ropes onto the grid of rusty pipes on the ceiling. Each of them had an IV needle buried in the left side of their necks, each connecting to a transfusion bag that was starting to fill up with their blood. One of them was so tall that his arms weren’t even pulled up straight for his hands to reach the ceiling. He had theatrically dark and thick eyebrows, a neatly trimmed beard and medium length dirty blond hair jutting into the air like a field of ripen wheat. The man on his left was clean-shaven, thinner and shorter, but still almost as tall as Dean. His tousled dark hair curled and drooped all around his tanned face. He was wearing a pair of tortoise shell glasses on a nose bridge as sharp and smooth as the spine of a knife. Both men were very thin, and dressed in almost matching dove grey jeans and black sneakers. The tall man was wearing an NC State sweatshirt, and the shorter one was in a heather pink hoodie.

“Looks like grad students. Let’s cut them loose.” The Winchesters approached the unconscious duo.

Dean carefully severed the ropes around the thin brunet’s wrists, caught his hands and slowly lowered them. The sting from the returning circulation seemed to have woken the young man. He winced and let out a small whine. His long, dark eyelashes fanned the air as his eyes fluttered open and blinked groggily. As soon as he saw Dean’s face and the hunter’s hands supporting his own limp arms, he smiled.

“Didn’t you already save me?”

Dean’s frown was very confused. “Uh…I don’t—”

Before he could finish, the brunet weakly turned his head to the right and saw Sam fussing over the ropes tying the taller man’s hands to the ceiling.

“Get away from him!” His voice was weak and scratchy from the recent coma, but the enraged menace in his tone and the stone-cold fury in his eyes made Dean genuinely fear for his brother. The brunet was already twisting his right hand behind his back, lifting the hem of his hoodie and pulling something upwards. Dean could recognize the drawing of a weapon anytime, anywhere. His quick reflex send his left hand clamping down on the man’s slim arm.

“Whoa, whoa, easy. My brother’s just trying to help your friend. I know this is probably hard to hear but you both have been poisoned. You were probably hallucinating for a while but you are safe now. So could you _please_ relax so I can get that thing out of your neck?”

The good-looking man with glasses stared at Dean’s finger pointing at the left side of his neck, and seemed more confused, but his weapon-drawing hand dropped to his side. Dean stepped closer to the brunet, reached up and pressed firmly on the young man’s carotid artery. With his other hand he gripped the IV needle piercing under the tanned skin, and yanked it out with a quick but well-controlled motion. He pressed down on the spot a little harder, not noticing how the young man’s breathing seemed to have quickened under his touch.

“You gotta keep pressure on that a little longer.” Dean commanded before the brunet blinked, collected himself and brought his own hand up to his neck. Their fingertips almost brushed together when they switched hands on the pressure point. Dean was going to ask whether the man was feeling ok when suddenly, as if snapping out of a trance, the brunet turned and dashed towards the oddly tall blond.

“Rhett!” He yelled, pushed Sam aside and ripped a silver knife from its sheath fastened to the back of his belt. He was murmuring something with a shaky voice, but his knife was steady and fast against the ropes. He succeeded and immediately tossed his weapon aside and pulled the needle out of the tall man’s neck. Dean watched him wipe under his eyes, throw his arms around the towering body, and sob and murmur into the other man’s narrow shoulder. He realized that they must have been more than friends.

“Hey…hey. What’s wrong? Link?” The dark-blond came to and softly whispered in a deep, raspy voice. “Link? Oh you’re alive. Oh thank god. Oh…baby…you’re still here. You’re still here with me.” His numb hands slowly moved up to hug the thinner man’s body, making him wince at the pain caused by the movement.

“I must have missed and the Djinn got me. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t save you…” The smaller man’s voice broke.

“Did you just say Djinn? You _know_ about that?” Dean could hardly control the surprise in his voice, but he caught up with what the young man’s knowledge implied about his identity, and became very cautious.

“Yeah, it’s a creature that poisons humans by touching, and then feast on the victim’s blood. The poison is a sub-epidermal hallucinogen that makes you believe that you are living in reality, and have no idea that...Oh.” The towering blond froze as his eyes fixed on the transfusion bag on the counter next to him. The crimson liquid inside filled the length of the plastic tube snaking out of it and seeped out of an IV needle lying on the floor. Alarm fleeted through his hazel eyes as he turned his gaze back to the companion in his arms, and saw the crimson bead that had slid from his freshly healed needle mark, and crawled an inch down the brunet’s strong tendons. “Aww, Link.” He whispered, gently caressing the minuscule wound with his thumb, oblivious of the identical seeping mark on his own neck. All of a sudden, he snapped out of the worrying and looked back at Dean. “But wait, you know about the Djinn too so you must also be…”

“Yeah. I’m Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean.” Sam joined the conversation and coolly delivered the introduction.

The brunet called “Link” visibly tensed when he heard the name “Sam Winchester”. He swiveled around in the blink of an eye and stood wide in front of the man bigger and taller than him, throwing his thin arms out to the side. The speed and force of his movement knocked Rhett stumbling back a step. The towering man’s hazel eyes darted back and forth among the other three men, his expression was a deeply confused frown.

“You are _not_ Sam Winchester.” Link seethed.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, alarmed. _How could you possibly know?_ He thought.

“When I was hallucinating, both of you were in it and you told me.” Link jabbed a finger towards Dean. “He doesn’t have a soul.”

Dean’s eyes widened as Sam’s narrowed. Rhett put his hands on the shorter man’s bony shoulders and gently rubbed his tense muscles. “Link, we were just dreaming.” He quietly cautioned his friend in the tone of a mother gently telling her child to behave. “I’m Rhett McLaughlin and this is Link Neal.” He spoke to the brothers, gently patting Link’s shoulder. Suddenly, realization flashed across his face. “Sam Winchester…the last thing we knew of you was that you went into the Cage.” There was no question in his statement but a hanging demand for an explanation.

“He was brought back. But it’s true, his soul was left behind—which is our business and nobody else’s, and we’re working our frickin’ asses off trying to—”

“Dean, look out!” A tenor voice screamed. Dean was frozen for a second, watching the thin frame in the pink hoodie charging forward. He spun his head to where the furious blue eyes were staring, just in time to see Sam lunge his silver knife crusted with lamb’s blood through a humanoid creature’s neck. It was extending its tensed talon inches away from Dean’s body. Intricate tattoo-like patterns of curves and spikes ran from the back of the Djinn’s hands up its arms and bloomed onto its face and its bare torso, and seemed to be glowing fluorescent blue. In the contrast of the tattoo, its skin was as ashy and leathery as a decaying corpse. Its flared eyes were a blazing shade of cobalt. Sam’s mortal wounding had made its hand grow limp and its fluorescent irises go dark. In the meantime, the cobalt tattoo seemed to be fading and retreating towards the center of its body. Sam added a sharp twist of his knife. Dark crimson sprinkled onto his face and streamed down his hand.

Rhett watched the brawny man’s blood-spattered face contort with disgust, rage and triumph, and settle into a vicious smile. He detected an unmistakable glint of pleasure radiating from Sam’s dark irises. Rhett suppressed a gasp and took a long stride to close the distance between himself and Link’s angrily shaking body. He slung his right arm all the way around Link’s chest and gently pulled him back, keeping his cautious gaze on the Winchesters.

“Alright. Not too rusty, huh?” Dean gave his brother’s burgeoning bicep a hearty slap. Rhett heard the stiffness in his voice and saw Dean gasp slightly at the sight of his brother’s blood-stained smile. The tall blond’s arm tightened around Link when Sam brought one foot up to the creature’s abdomen and kicked the lifeless body away from his knife. He felt Link twitch just as the corpse was flung onto the linoleum. Concerned, he brought up his other hand to gently chafe Link’s wiry bicep, and bent his head down to the side to check Link’s face. The younger man’s expression seemed a touch disturbed, but his eyes were steady and fearless. Rhett planted a gentle kiss on top of his soft, wavy hair.

“Let’s burn the motherfucker.” Sam seemed wild with anticipation.

“Yup.” Dean mumbled in a clipped tone with pursed lips and a troubled frown. The brothers started moving the body.

“Thank you.” Rhett’s baritone rang with sincerity.

Dean turned towards him with a firm nod. “Stay safe, guys.” He said. Link noticed the kind, almond-shaped green eyes linger briefly on his face before the brothers turned and carried the creature out of the hallway.

Stepping into the pleasant night air, Dean’s brow was still deeply furrowed. He had rarely smiled ever since he found out Sam’s soul was left in Lucifer’s hands. He did not like how his brother had been taking more pleasure in killing things than in helping people. But today, something else added to his cobweb of worries.

“That guy Link Neal… when he was out, he had a vision with us in it even though we’ve never met. That’s…that’s weird. _Our_ kind of weird.”

“He was touched by a Djinn and the poison fucked up his brain, dude. Who knows what ridiculous shit your mind can make up in the hallucination? I mean, when that other Djinn got you, you thought yellow-eyes was back. You fucking shot him yourself, dude.” Sam’s tone was as breezy as the night air.

“Yeah, but dreaming about _us_ specifically? Every time that’s happened to someone, nothing good came out of it. And he knew that you didn’t have your soul? That’s way too…that can’t be natural. We should have tested him. What if he’s not entirely human?”

“Dude, the guy was practically a blood bag for the Djinn. Have you ever heard of a Djinn drinking non-human blood?”

“I guess you’re right.” The big brother’s reply was very hesitant. “Still, maybe we should keep an eye on those two.”  

Sam was getting very impatient and let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah Dean. _Beware_ , of the hipster in pink!” He waved his hand all around like a hopelessly terrible Shakespearean actor, mocking Dean with a theatric tone.

Dean was going to say something, but the truth of Sam’s statement made him embarrassed by his paranoia. He pursed his lips.

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

The Winchester brothers climbed into the Impala and slammed their doors shut in perfect synchrony.

 

Back in the building, Rhett and Link were entirely oblivious of the exchange outside. As soon as the Winchesters exited the scene, their hands were around each other’s backs, heads on each other’s shoulders, lips murmuring sweet reassurances and planting loving kisses. Link was ecstatic in hearing his lover’s voice again and holding the solid, warm muscles between his arms, but he suddenly pulled back in realization.

“Hey, when you came to, you said ‘you’re alive’.” He stared at the handsome face above him. “What…you didn’t already know that?”

Rhett gently pushed Link’s head to lay back down on his chest, and tightened his embrace. “Remember that Daeva thing we read about in the Supernatural books?”

“Yeah. You were obsessed with that thing for weeks. Wasn’t it your worst fear?”

Rhett did not reply immediately. He closed his eyes and stroked his best friend’s silken hair.

“Well…when I was out, we were tracking one down and…”

Link felt the warm body freeze all around him and had to push back to look at Rhett’s face.

“It killed you.” The baritone was weighed down by lingering horror.

Link reached up and caressed Rhett’s lips with his thumb. Rhett closed his eyes, indulging in the touch. “Hey, babe, it was just a nightmare.” The soft tenor whispered. Rhett held him closer and nodded.

“Wait, you met the Winchesters in yours? That must be exciting. How come you have it better with everything?” Rhett teased, trying to lighten the mood. He was confused when Link suddenly pulled back and gaped at him with wide Bambi eyes.

“What? Did you not like them?” Rhett scraped the tip of the smaller man’s delicate nose.

“I…I lost you.” Link hesitated and decided not to trouble his best friend with the full extent of his absurd horror. “I dreamt that you were missing and somehow I bumped into the Winchesters. They said they would help me find you but…for some reason Sam tried to hurt me. And that’s how I knew he was soulless.”

“Hurt you?” Rhett’s teasing smile disappeared.

“Yeah he…tied me up and waved my knife at me and stuff.” _And stuff_. Link felt the ghost of the seizing cramp returning to his legs, and decided to nip the thought. He willed himself to focus on every element of the dream that did _not_ make sense. Of course Sam fricking Winchester wouldn’t be a YouTube fan or have…feelings for him. Of course Dean wouldn’t face a Lamia unarmed or use “White Rabbit” as his ringtone. It wasn’t real after all. Link let out a bated breath. “I don’t know. My brain is weird. You got me on that one, alright?”

Rhett chuckled and patted Link’s sharp shoulder blade. “Well, we are ok now. Let’s go home.”

Link took the steering wheel and the duo zipped through the tranquil night air. They were reveling in the joyful reunion and eager to put the terrible dreams behind them, but were both too vested in their supernatural pursuit to not continue analyzing their experience.

“You know how our research said that if you get poisoned by a Djinn, your brain would try to tell you that you were hallucinating? Like…bits of the actual reality would come through?” Rhett gestured enthusiastically. Link nodded.

“Well, for part of it I was on campus. We went to the Brickyard and sat in a classroom and everything. I think on some level my mind was trying to tell me that I was actually at NC State.” A thoughtful pause. “Huh. Never thought I’d have a real near death experience on our campus.” Rhett chuckled. “What about yours?”

Link tensed. His eyes darted aimlessly around the windshield.

“Um…like…the way we were tied up. It was…kind of like that…in mine.” Rhett saw his friend’s distress and regretted the train of thought. He reached out to caress Link’s cheek and brush his soft hair out of his temple. Link relaxed under his fingertips.

“You know…the books also said the hallucination was either your deepest desire or your worst nightmare…I guess we got the darker end of the spectrum.” Rhett paused, hesitating over what he wanted to say. “But neither of us was dreaming about Sundance.” He blurted out and immediately regretted it again.

Link lowered his eyes. The painful memory took his breath away for a second, but he collected himself and pressed his right hand firmly on Rhett’s knee.

“I don’t think that would still be our worst nightmare. On some level…I think we both know that something like that will never happen again.”

“I won’t let it.” Steely conviction rang deep in the baritone.

Link smiled and put his hand back on the steering wheel, turning his gaze to the highway. Every once in a while a reflective sign would mirror the headlights back at him, reminding him that they were moving closer and closer towards home.

“It’s…kind of enlightening that now we know what our worst nightmares are. Not…dying but…losing each other.” He mused.

Rhett swiveled to look at his lover’s profile. He needed to see how real Link was, how his long lashes were not hanging still in the gloomy night air but animatedly fluttering every now and then; how his cheeks were not slowly draining into ashy paleness but glowing with a warm energy; and how his eyes were not glazed over, unfocused and unmoving, but intently trained on the road ahead and brimming with a sapphire flame. But despite his best intentions, memories of holding this beautiful, lithe body in a pool of blood was rising to the surface and blinding him with tears.

“You know, if we keep doing this, we might actually lose each other in the line of fire.” Rhett heard the tremor in his voice and knew that Link heard it too.

The brunet turned and gasped at the glimmer of bone-chilling fear in Rhett’s eyes that he had never seen before. He was rendered speechless. They sat in silence while his mind raced towards something to lighten the mood. He pressed a few buttons and turned on the stereo. They both welcomed the musical distraction of Bon Iver and leaned back absent-mindedly for a moment.

“Hmmm. The Winchesters, huh?” Rhett reflected. “Do you think they’ve ever punched each other in the face?” Link giggled at the question, drawing more chuckles out of Rhett, and before long, the air inside their car was shaking with a laugh attack. It took a long time for Link to regain his breath.

“They probably have. They’re not in love like we are.” The tenor said softly. Rhett regarded his lover with a tender smile.

“You know those flaming pentagram tattoos they had?” Link suddenly remembered. “Should we get those?”

“Tattoos?”

“Yeah, to prevent possession. Should we get it?”

“I mean…we take our shirts off for videos all the time, I don’t see how we can pull that off.” Rhett considered the thought seriously for only a second and decided to tease the brunet instead. “Maybe you can put one on your bum.”

Link snapped his head around and gaped at Rhett, who gave him a flirty wink. The thought of Link’s bum reminded Rhett of something.

“You know, when I was out… I did have a _really_ good idea.”

“Well, I’ll be the judge of that.” Link pressed his voice low and feigned seriousness.

Without looking at his friend Rhett put his hand on Link’s thigh inches away from his crotch, and gave it a teasing squeeze. 

“To the studio.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes the main plot line of "Don't Meet Your Hero", and the next chapter is pure smut. So if explicit sexual content is not your cup of tea, feel free to stop here and thank you kindly for reading thus far!!
> 
> Djinn: as the characters explained, a Djinn can poison its victim by touching, causing reality-altering hallucinations. The victim would feel like they have lived a lifetime in their fantasy universes while the Djinn feed on their blood, slowly killing them through exsanguination. The first Djinn that appeared on the show created a hallucination of one’s deepest desire; the season 6 variant made the victims see their deepest fear, fed on it and killed them quickly with the poison. Personally I think the blood sucking version makes more sense, so the Djinn in my story is kind of a combination of the two in order to facilitate plot development.
> 
> Yellow-eyes (Azazel): a major presence in Lucifer’s army and in the first two season of Supernatural. Azazel is the demon who killed Sam and Dean’s mother, set fire to their house and fed Sam demon blood. He did the same to many children, preparing them to be the ones to open the gates of hell. Azazel is more powerful than the average demon and impervious to holy water, but vulnerable to the colt. At the end of season two Dean killed him with this gun, but the character served as a lingering nightmare throughout the later seasons as it was revealed that many of the evils Sam and Dean continue to encounter were consequences of Azazel’s doing back when he was alive.


	8. Breathe

As soon as the studio door was slammed shut behind them and the light flicked on, their eager hands were all over each other.

“So…what was…your idea?” Link’s question was a series of gasps between fervent kisses.

In response, Rhett yanked Link’s hoodie open and ripped it from his shoulders, revealing the purple T-Shirt printed with Jenga blocks. He tugged it up Link’s chest and started kissing his left nipple. Link shuddered and moaned under the flicking tongue and grabbed the bottom of Rhett’s sweatshirt and his undershirt, and tugged both layers up with a coy series of “hmm”. Rhett let go of Link’s T-Shirt and nipple briefly to hold his arms above his head, and Link pulled the taller man’s tops off with a triumphant smile. Rhett didn’t let his mischievous lover beam for long before grabbing Link’s thin arms and pushing them into the air. Link made a small noise of surprise while Rhett took hold of the purple shirt and tore it from the tanned body. Their hands proceeded to fight each other on the way to the buttons and zippers on their jeans, but both quickly succeeded in unfastening them. They pushed each other’s pants and underwear down to the floor and giggled while bending down to pluck their own shoes off their feet and stepping out of the tight denim.

“Keep the socks. The floor’s cold.” Rhett instructed.

“F…floor? We’re not gonna be on the couch?” Link grew a little nervous as he darted his eyes to the usual amorous location, not knowing what his partner had planned.

“Hmm…actually you’re not gonna need your socks. Only my feet would be on the floor.” Rhett watched Link’s blue eyes grow cartoonish and laughed out loud. He stepped forward, wrapped his arms around the undressed body, and grinded their lips and groins together. Link was instantly lost in the sensation and the aggressive kiss. His anxiety was reduced to a trail of soft moans. Rhett slid his right hand down and kneaded Link’s round, firm bottom. The brunet let out an aroused whine before doing the same to the blond. Never breaking the kiss, Rhett gave the firm backside a teasing slap. Link twitched and bit Rhett’s bottom lip lightly in revenge. Rhett put his finger on the bottom of Link’s cleft and traced it all the way up to his tail bone, then lingered there and rubbed electrifying circles in the sensitive area. The brunet moaned loudly and threw his head back under the arousing tickle. He smoothly sank onto his knees and took Rhett’s throbbing hardness into his mouth.

Rhett was suddenly enveloped by the familiar and overwhelming warmth of Link’s mouth. He lost his balance for a second and had to catch himself on the thin, tanned shoulders, but he instantly relaxed his fingers for fear of hurting his best friend. He moved one hand behind Link’s head and gently followed the brunet’s thrusting rhythm. Link slowly turned his eyes up and trapped Rhett’s gaze in the dark pools blooming out of his own pupils. Rhett saw a wicked glimmer in the beautiful blue eyes and couldn’t figure out what was coming, when all of a sudden Link put a finger in the dimple behind Rhett’s knee and lightly traced all the way up to the bottom of his ass. Rhett shivered with wide eyes and Link laughed around his blood brother’s cock. The blond narrowed his eyes with a sly smile, withdrew from Link’s lips and pulled the smaller man up from the floor by his rock hard biceps. Link pouted and reached his hand back towards Rhett’s prick, but the blond man whispered “wait here” and walked to the corner of the room. Link was more confused than he would like to be, until Rhett turned and he saw what was in his lover’s hands.

It was Rhett’s oversized, watermelon colored fitness ball.

Link’s confusion melted into anticipation while Rhett took the object towards the couch. He set the soft sphere a few inches in front of the cushions, pushed down on it a few times to made sure that the perpendicular friction from the floor and the linen behind it would hold it in place. He turned, sat down, and bounced a few times, keeping a teasing stare into Link’s eyes. Link was already mindlessly moving towards him before he held up one finger and hooked at the mouthwatering brunet.

Link stood in front of the exercise ball with a deep blush, not knowing what to do. Rhett grinned, put his hands on Link’s hips, and rubbed the pointy hip bones a few times before pulling him between his thighs and capturing the lovely, erect length in his mouth. Link groaned and fell forward, catching himself on Rhett’s shoulders. Rhett indulged in the deep groans he pulled out of the tenor’s throat and the warm hardness filling his mouth, and moved his fingers back towards Link’s cleft. Rhett was driven wild by how the firm ass was tensing and twitching under his touch. He had to force himself not to push Link over the edge just like that. They were both reluctant when Rhett let go of his friend.

“Lube?” The seated man asked between panting breaths. Link smiled and pulled the requested object out of a desk drawer. Rhett took the bottle from his hand, set it next to himself and gently twisted Link’s body around.

“Hands on the floor. In front of me.” He commanded softly. Link looked back with a confused frown and saw that his tall lover was entirely certain of himself. He moved to stand right in front of Rhett’s parted feet, and slowly bent down, shamelessly wiggling his bottom in Rhett’s face. He was rewarded with muffled chuckles and another firm smack. When his hands touched the floor he felt Rhett’s palm gently patting the outer side of his left thigh.

“Up.” The baritone instructed.

“Up?”

“Yeah. Don’t you trust me?”

Rhett could almost hear Link roll his eyes, but the tanned leg complied and swung up. Rhett grabbed it, set Link’s thigh on top of his own, and patted Link’s other leg.

“Um…” Link was a bit embarrassed by his trepidation.

“How’s the floor feel? Is it slippery at all?”

“Nah… I think I have good purchase here.”

“Ok. I’ll hold you. I promise.” Link felt his heart melt to the deep, gentle voice, and extended his right leg into the air, giving his balance over to the love of his life. His nervousness went away as soon as he settled into the new position. His hands under him held his torso level and steady, almost parallel to the floor. His thighs crossed over Rhett’s thighs, and distributed his weight evenly into his lovers support. He was even able to reach his long legs behind Rhett’s back and set his feet on the couch.

“Hmm. This is not as hard as I thought.” He commented and felt Rhett grabbing his butt cheeks and pushing them around.

“Oh, you’re gonna get it _hard_ , honey.” The voice behind him said. Link giggled and bit his lip in excitement.

Rhett warmed the lube in his hand and gently worked it past Link’s tight rim. The brunet was instantly drunk on the sensation. He tilted his head back and let out a keening moan, vaguely aware of the baritone responding “yeah baby” behind him. Another finger entered, exploring the nerves, playing Link’s body like a well-tuned guitar. On top of the heady sensations, Link felt more and more overwhelmed by the elevation of his hips above the level of his head, sending blood rushing to his brain. He tentatively dipped his head and tilted it back again, trying to regain his breath.

Rhett felt the muscles around his fingers pliant and ready. He pulled out and wrapped the rest of the lube onto his hardness, pressed the tip into Link’s rim, moved his hands to Link’s narrow hips and slowly pulled him all the way onto his cock. Link convulsed back towards the exquisite pain, and Rhett held himself still, gently kneading Link’s ass, waiting for his lover to be ready again. When he felt a slight relaxation, he started thrusting gently but relentlessly. The cushioning of the fitness ball let him enter his best friend even deeper than he was used to, and the elastic rebound jostled their bodies in such a way that added a million additional rubs and vibrations that took their sanity away.

Rhett started to thrust bolder and faster, and Link rocked his hip back, slamming his ass into his lover’s stomach. He anticipated Rhett’s staggering endurance, but was still surprised by how much harder his arms had to work to support him. His biceps threatened to contract into a cramp, but then the soreness in his muscles gradually intensified into a delicious burn, followed by a cooling numbness. He marveled at the sensation and loved having to earn his pleasure. His slender body was swaying back and forth and up and down at the same time, making blood surge towards his cock and his brain simultaneously. Every thrust and grunt seemed more dizzying than the last, and the room seemed to dim and light up again with every weak flutter of his eyelids. Just as Link was slowly but surely losing his consciousness, Rhett reached down under his stomach and wrapped his broad palm around his cock, now painfully hard. The moan Link let out was almost a scream.

Link listened as the panting, moaning, thrusting and pumping blended into a muffled pounding in his ears. Everything around him was growing more dull, everything but the crescendo of Rhett’s manhood entering his body. With every dip towards the floor, darkness crashed down on his vision like a flood. It was an exquisite sensation, like slipping into a lucid wet dream; but it was getting harder to ignore how much his breathing had grown shallow, his wrists had gone weak and his head had been dipping closer and closer to the floor.

“Rhett, I’m gonna pass—ahh!” Link gave all the remnant of his breath to the gasp when he felt Rhett pulsate and release deep inside him. Link reflexively tightened. Rhett’s hand around his cock stilled while the other one dug into the soft skin around his hip. Link smiled to his lover’s unbridled growl and started giving in to the vertigo.

“I’m gonna put you down now, hold steady, ok?” Rhett gently requested as he withdrew himself. Link managed to push through the haze and keep his wrists strong while Rhett kept a tight hold on his legs as he slowly pushed them forward, setting Link’s knees one after another onto the floor. Link panted on all fours when Rhett swung one leg up from between Link’s thighs to outside of them, carefully stood up, pushing against the fitness ball, and retrieved his other leg. He stumbled slightly under the waves of aftershock, walked around to face Link, and crouched down to check on his lover who was shaking on his hands and knees from the lingering, powerful sensations. Rhett tilted Link’s chin up and kissed him tenderly. They could both taste each other’s sweet pungency on their lover’s lips and moaned in an erotic chorus. Rhett caressed Link’s slightly clammy cheek and gazed into his wild blue eyes.

“Breathe.” The baritone whispered. “I love you.”

He watched his lover mouth the words “I love you too” without being able to make a sound. He smiled, picked up the limp body from the cold floor and set him down to sit on the fitness ball. Link was swaying around without regaining his balance, so Rhett swung one arm behind his lover’s upper back and firmly supported him while leaning his torso back until his head lay on the couch. He brushed the sweat soaked dark hair out of Link’s forehead and temples and kissed him again. Link’s chest was starting to heave regularly. Rhett smiled and walked around to stand between Link’s parted legs dangling off of the pink ball. He lifted the narrow hip and gently pulled his friend forward. Link responded with a soft whimper and simply let his head fall back and drag across the cushion. Rhett gently set him down again and knelt between the slack, tanned thighs. Link’s eyes were still closed when he felt his cock suddenly hugged by the warm wetness of Rhett’s mouth. He arched his head against the cushion, let the elastic ball bounce his hardness deep into Rhett’s gorge, and let his best friend take his breath away all over again.

Link was so close to the edge that just after a few slides and pops of Rhett’s lips, he emptied himself into his blood brother’s throat. Rhett listened to Link’s jagged moans and drank it all like frothy champagne. When Link was finally done, he gladly let go of the last sliver of light and sank into oblivion.

Rhett quietly stood up, leaned forward and hooked his arms under Link’s slack shoulders. He picked his friend up from the now sticky fitness ball and kicked it to the side. He kept a steady support under his lover’s slight weight as he stepped forward to lower the tanned body onto the couch. The slumbering brunet’s head immediately collapsed onto the cushions behind him without a sound. Rhett sat down next to his brother, his best friend, his one true love, and collected the head of dampened and tousled dark hair onto his shoulder. He inhaled the warm night air musky with sweat and sex, and let it out slowly.

“Breathe.” He whispered to himself, pressed his lips on Link’s crown, and closed his eyes.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eventual smut as promised! A gi-normous thank you to all of you who supported me through the dark and twisted scariness and left kudos and comments. Hope you liked my very first attempt at smut and see you in the next one!


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